Silver howls
by Pikapixie The Demigod
Summary: Everyone knows the story of Sam and Grace- Sam, the werewolf; Grace, the human. They were very much in love. But the full story... a piece of it was lost. Sam's terrible childhood wasn't suffered alone- no, there was another, younger. A young girl with hair like a dark abyss and eyes like steel- Aleta. Aleta Roth.
1. Red past

**Hi! I just recently discovered that one of my favorite trilogys- the wolves of Mercy Falls series- was a fanfic area! So I decided to do this. Although I have no plot as of yet, it will follow the storyline of Shiver. Please review!**

Everyone knows the story of Sam and Grace- Sam, the werewolf; Grace, the human. They were very much in love. But the full story... a piece of it was lost. Sam's terrible childhood wasn't suffered alone- no, there was another, younger. A young girl with hair like a dark abyss and eyes like steel- Aleta. Aleta Roth.

The first time Aleta saw the wolves, they weren't wolves.

A tall, tall man with auburn hair and deep blue eyes watched her. Them. Her and her brother. Beside him was a large man, bulky and black. Sam didn't notice- he laughed again with daddy, his yellow eyes sparkling. The wolves ignored the thronging crowd, standing like rocks in a rushing river. Aleta frowned and tugged on his sleeve.

"Tham- tham."

His eyes flicked down to her and he grinned, sporting a large smile with a gaping hole in the front. He had just lost his front tooth and was proud of it. Sam had a soft spot the size of Texas for his younger sister- he would do anything for her, from sharing his candy with her to pushing down the mean boy in his class who teased her and stole her toys.

"Yeah, Ally?"

Aleta pointed. "Wolfs."

"Wolves?" he looked where she was pointing. The man narrowed his eyes in thought at them when he did.

"No, Ally. People."

"Wolfs," Aleta insisted, but Sam just shook his head.

"Come on, Ally. Mommy and Daddy are leaving." and they were, walking on without realizing they had stopped. They were on our way to the candy shop- the one with melty, gooey things that any four year old loved- and Aleta was no exception. All thought of wolves left her mind and she squealed, racing with Sam back to their parents' sides.

The man watched- and smiled.

**... Line Break ...**

Aleta screamed and banged on the bathroom door with her tiny fists, whaling on the wood and shrieking like a banshee while she did. Tears welled in her eyes and she heard Sam cry out again- Aleta could smell blood on the other side of the barrier. Her parents counted, counted, talking in soothing voices- _Don't worry, Sam _and _We're helping, Sam._

"Tham!" Aleta wailed and kicked the door, grunting when it hurt. Water splashed under the door. "Tham!" She backed up, her bare feet squeaking on the tile in the hallway, and flew forward, slamming her shoulder into the door. When that didn't work and Sam screeched, Aleta darted down the hallway to the kitchen, where daddy had told her the phone would be if anything ever happened to him or mommy or Sam. _Dial 911 if that ever happens._

Sam had been sick for a while. Really, really sick. He was a wolf now, Aleta knew. He threw up a lot and shuddered into new shapes, huddled under the blankets and ripping the blankets to shreds with black claws and white teeth. Aleta was worried when she heard them talking-the grownups.

_"We have to get rid of the demon," daddy said firmly. _

_"There's nothing more we can do," the man in the big white dress said. "The church has tried so much. He can't be banished."_

_"Then we'll kill it ourselves."_

But mommy and daddy had knives, sharp knives they had told Aleta never _never_ to touch because they were sharp.

She opened the phone in the drawer, scanning the buttons and trying furiously to remember which buttons were nine and one. Sam made an awful howling noise, not quite human, and Aleta bit her lip and guessed.

"911, what's your emergency?" a girl's voice asked. Aleta didn't waste time wondering how.

"My bwother is dying!" she wailed with a choking sob. "Mommy and Daddy are killing him!"

"Where is your location?"

"I dunno! Help, please!"

"Calm down, miss. We are tracking your location."

Aleta had an idea and ran back to the hallway, back to the door bursting with muffled sobs, and threw the phone at the door. When that didn't work and Sam went quiet, she frowned and opened her mouth to scream, "MOMMY, THE DEMON GOT ME!"

Not that she knew what a demon was, but it worked.

There was a scrambling noise and a sound like splashing water, and the door flew open, and there stood her mommy with the razor and red on her arm. Her shirt was soaked through and wet, and Aleta knew that red was supposed to stay inside-it only came out when your knee hit hard things. Her mommy's eyes were wild, brown, savage, and when she saw Aleta she grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her hard and lifting her off the ground.

"Out! Out! We'll cut you too, you monster, GET OUT OF MY DAUGHTER!"

Aleta whimpered and cried, shouting her distress but her mother didn't notice and over her mother's shoulder, through the doorway, she saw her daddy by the bathtub and Sam lying still, floating on his back like he taught her to float in the pool, only his black mop of hair spread around his face in a sea of red, red, red water and he wasn't smiling.

Aleta stared.

There was a ringing smash from somewhere in the front of the house and the sudden buzz of voices-shouting unintelligibly and racing through the house with black things in their hands. Aleta heard their feet pounding into the kitchen and into the hallway and they swarmed around her mommy and poured into the bathroom and Aleta was moved into someone else's hands and there was a lot of yelling, movement, swirling colors.

Black, like Sam's hair rimmed with red...

**... Line Break ...**

_"Gregory and Annette Roth, I hereby sentence you both to life in prison for the attempted murder of Samuel and Aleta Roth."_

**... Line Break ...**

They both thrashed in the arms of their captors-Sam in Beck's, and Aleta in the man who insisted was her father's.

"Tham! Tham!"

"Aleta! Let her go!"

"Sam, come on." Beck soothed. "She's going to her home now."

"Tham," Aleta wailed, tears streaking her face, midnight braids coming undone. "Don't leave!"

Their captors dragged them apart.

**... Line Break ...**

"Dad, come on," Aleta sighed. "You can't keep coming home like this. I swear, one of these days you're gonna get arrested for drinking and driving."

She glanced at the bedraggled man at the table. His hair was smushed on one side, and his bleary eyes squinted against the harsh kitchen light. Aleta rummaged around in the cabinets for a moment before pulling down a bottle of aspirin with a triumphant sound. Clunking the bottle down in front of him, she pulled the half empty paper cup of alcohol from his hand.

"Hey," he muttered. "How'm I supposed to take these?"

Aleta dumped the alcohol down the drain and crushed the cup, tossing it backward over her shoulder into the wastebasket by the entrance to the living room. She rinsed out the cup she had just been using, filled it to the brim with tap water, and set it down on the table next to the bottle of pills.

"With this." she ordered. "With _all _of this."

"Yeah, yeah," he laughed, then groaned. Quickly Holt popped open the pills and swallowed three, ignoring the sharp look Aleta sent his way. He drained the glass and sighed, putting his head in his arms. Aleta crossed her arms in front of the table. This was getting ridiculous. It was Friday and she was supposed to be waking up in four hours to go to school.

"You need to stop going to your friends' houses and getting drunk. It isn't healthy and we're always low on aspirin. It's three in the morning, Holt."

"I know," he said. His voice was muffled by his arms. "And what would I do without you?"

"Pass out in the gutter."

"Ha. Funny."

His shoulders relaxed as the meds kicked in and he raised his head back up. Aleta took his glass, turned to the sink, filled it back up, and gave it back to him, then rubbed her face tiredly, yawning. Plucking at the frayes of her pajama sleeves, she said, "Now drink that, and we'll get you to bed."

"You sound like my mom," Holt said seriously, and sipped his water.

"And you sound like a facetious teenager!" Aleta snapped. "Stop being a baby!"

The real reason she wanted to go to bed again was simple- the fleeting mist of a wide smile with a missing tooth, eyes like the wolves outside her house, black hair bathed in blood. The high, tinny singing voice of a potential angel rang through her dreams every night for as long as she could remember, and she really wasn't sure why. She was missing something, Aleta knew. Something important she couldn't place.

Aleta's train of thought was interrupted by a cheeky clink of Holt's glass on wood. He looked at her expectantly.

"Don't give me attitude! You're the one with the hangover, genius! Come on," she said, leaning down and slipping Holt's arm over her shoulders and helping him stand. He almost toppled and leaned heavily on Aleta, and she grunted. She was starting to get stronger, Aleta noted dryly. They stumbled along to his room across the house, and when he was comfortably under the covers and snoring away, Aleta turned back to her own room just across the hall.

Dark and cool, Aleta's room was her own sanctuary. The walls were dark purple, almost black, like the night sky. The walls were dotted with paintings and murals of her own creation-a yellow eye on a boy's face dominated most of them. The boy from her dreams. He was young-six at the least, eight at the very most. He smiled with a big grin missing a tooth.

Others were more gruesome- a mangled hand twisted with claws and fur, a hunched shape under shredded bed sheets, a single tooth dripping with fresh-drawn blood. The glinting edge of a razor held by a red-stained hand.

A few were fairly normal. A moonlit night on the beach, like a reverse sunrise. A few were of the woods behind her house and the eyes of humans staring back at her in the shape of wolves.

Only one I didn't understand- a life-size painting on my wall. A tall man, so tall I'd needed a step-stool to paint him. Dark auburn hair framed his face, and shadowed his eyes-blue like the calm ocean. He watched out with such a strange kind of thoughtfulness on his face-it was kind of creepy actually, Aleta wasn't quite sure why she'd painted it.

Her bed was just a nest of blankets on the floor, because she'd never felt quite comfortable in a bed. A plain white desk was shoved into the corner, with a desk light and an uneven pile of textbooks and unfinished homework. The carpet was a soft green- Alita had saved for ages to be able to get a new carpet.

She collapsed into her nest and fell asleep to the gentle singing of the wolves outside.


	2. The truth of things

**Woah... I think it's awesome that I can put a new story up at ten at night, come back to check for errors two minutes later, and have two views from china! Though I wish they'd reviewed... and one this morning from America! And Mexico! Lot of text and maybe it moves a little fast, but it would get boring if I drew it out over multiple chapters, I think. Anywho, R&R!**

That boy smiled at her even though he was drowning. His face was incredibly detailed, like an old memory. His eyes were yellow, flecked with oranges and golds, the opposite of Aleta's own- Gray with the eerie presence of white and sterling silver. His gap-toothed smile contrasted with the terror in his eyes, mouth smeared in red, his own blood. His hair was identical to hers, dark, dark black like the deepest part of the ocean.

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Aleta's eye cracked open in irritation.

_Beep!_

She muttered angry things under her breath and wiped the tears from her face absently, because this happened every night even when the dreams were happy. The fuzzy swirling purple of her ceiling came into focus slowly and she sat up, rubbing her eyes.

_Beep! Beep! Bee-_

"Oh, for the love of-!"

The alarm clock flew across the room and cracked against the wall. The alarm sputtered and died and Aleta cursed- that was the third one this month. Holt was _not _going to buy her another one. Speaking of, Holt had work today and he really couldn't afford to skip another day. Was he still hungover?

"Ugh. Holt! Wake up!" Aleta yelled and kicked her legs out from under the blankets and heaved herself up to her feet, groggy from the morning's adventure. When she got no answer, she stepped out into the hall and pounded on his door with one hand until he yelled at her to go away, and she smiled.

"Get up! Work!"

"My head hurts!"

"Boo hoo. If I have to go to school, you have to go to work."

"Don't go to school."

"Holt!"

"Kidding, kidding."

When she still didn't hear any sign of movement, Aleta opened the door and strode inside. His room was messy and comfortable, with lime green walls and a plain tan carpet. Puffy blue curtains covered the windows, which really didn't match the rest of the room, but he'd been so excited when he'd found it and Aleta hadn't had the heart to tell him. She made her way over to the window and flung said curtain open.

Light streamed into the room, shining on Holt's face. He moaned and pulled up the covers, which she promptly pulled down.

"Up. Take a shower. I'll make breakfast, but we're out of aspirin, so just deal with it."

Aleta poked and prodded until he got up, raising his hands up in surrender and headed into the bathroom.

When the water was running and Aleta knew he wasn't going to go back to bed, she went back into her own room. There wasn't enough time to take a shower anymore and she actually only had about ten minutes, so she threw some dry conditioner into her hair and threw on a cute tshirt she had designed herself- baby wolves on the moon howling at earth- and a pair of yellow jeans.

She made her way into the kitchen and fixed cheerios and orange juice, then swallowed down her vitamin pills. She left a second bowl and glass of juice on the table, picked up her backpack from the foyer and ran through the door.

Aleta had to cut through the woods every day to get to her bus stop, but she didn't mind. The woods were where she got most of her inspiration for her painting, especially in the winter when the wolves were about. Most of them weren't particularly afraid of humans. Cautious, yes, they wouldn't come very close, but they weren't scared. For some reason, the wolves didn't seem entirely... wolfy.

But right now she didn't have time to think on that- Aleta Johnson was late for school.

**... Line Break ...**

"How does he expect us to read _Romeo and Juliet _in four days?" Aleta hissed on her way out of English. "That's not possible!"

"Well maybe if you'd read it two weeks ago when he first assigned it..." Isabel laughed.

"Hey, you weren't even _here _when he assigned it!"

"I still read it. What do you think I'm doing when I skip?"

"Googling neurosurgeons and teasing your mothers' patients."

"Whatever. You wish you had grades like mine."

"I would have my homework done more often if I didn't keep having to baby my dad at ungodly hours in the morning. By the way..."

"No. I didn't find anything about that," Isabel said boredly. "He did it again? Maybe you _are _adopted. You two are nothing alike."

Aleta sighed and spun the combination to her locker. Trading her English textbook for her purse, she considered taking out her art supplies and going to class. Seventh period art was next, and although she loved art... Aleta was _not _in the mood to deal with Mrs. Simple. Seriously. Her name was Mrs. Simple.

"Wanna ditch?" Aleta suggested.

"Thought you'd never ask. I know more about science than my dumbass teacher does. Same deal?"

"You know it. Mrs. Simple can't paint worth crap."

"I'd say my house, but Jack's there all day. Has a cold, or something. Probably he's just going to mess with the squirrels."

"My house, then. My dad's at work and he doesn't care either way."

**... Line Break ...**

Driving in Isabel's car made Aleta more than a little self conscious but Mercy Falls was small and everyone who could have seen them was at school. She rolled down the window to let the cold air whip in.

"Oi. Heater's on."

Aleta reached out and switched it off with a grin. Isabel scowled.

"No it's not."

"One of these days, Johnson."

"You say that, but you know you love me."

"Hey, Johnson, I lied earlier." Isabel said nonchalantly, watching the road and turning onto an old stretch of road that led to Aleta's house. The car bumped and the tires crunched on the gravel.

'Yeah?" Aleta said absentmindedly, sticking her head out the window like a dog. The wind ruffled her short hair- she kept it cut down so that it framed her face in a feathery, boyish kind of way that made Aleta's eyes stick out from miles away. "About what?"

"About the adoption thing."

"_What?" _She exclaimed, jerking her head back in so fast her neck popped. Isabel made a face, somewhere between a guilty grimace and a blank, controlled look. "Why the hell would you lie about something like that?"

"Look, you aren't going to like this. I was going through old papers at the library and I found something interesting."

"Define interesting."

"A boy of your exact description along with a girl of your profile. Why did we trust ancestry dot com again?"

"Wha-who-say-explain further!" Aleta shrieked and Isabel swerved.

"Save the screaming for when we're at the house and people don't think I'm freaking kidnapping you. And check my purse, I stole the newspaper."

"Isabel!"

"Just read the damn thing, I'm driving."

And even though she felt uncomfortable doing so, she did. Isabel had been helping for years, trying to find the boy from her dreams. Five years ago, Aleta had realized something- she looked nothing like her dad. Well, she'd always known that, but five years ago Isabel had broken into the courthouse files with a volunteer group and realized that Holt had never been married, never had a kid. It had no mention of an adoption, but further investigation via google mentioned a fire that had screwed up some of the files a few dozen years ago.

So, gingerly, Aleta leaned over Isabel to pull old yellowed papers out of her purse. Aleta hesitated for a split second- was she ready?

"And you'll return this, right?"

"Ah, what the hell. I'm sure the librarian knows it was me anyway."

So she opened it and took a deep breath before looking at the headlines.

**ATTEMPTED MURDER OF TWO CHILDREN BY PARENTS.**

"You find murder interesting?" Aleta said weakly because she wasn't ready, not for something like this. Maybe she was ready to learn that Holt wasn't her dad. Maybe she was ready to learn who that boy was. But maybe she wasn't ready to learn this...

Isabel scowled and parked the car, moving the clutch back and turning to face Aleta.

"Read the paper," she said quietly.

_**Two days ago in Duluth, Minnesota, the happy Roth family turned sour. Parents Gregory and Annette Roth attempted to murder only son Samuel Roth, age seven, by cutting his wrists and attempting to drown him in the bathtub under the pretense that Samuel was under the influence of a demon. Four year old Aleta Roth called 911 and distracted her parents long enough for authorities to arrive at the scene. The trial will be held Monday. If you have any information on the crime, please call the hotline below**._

Two black and white pictures showed a smiling boy missing a tooth and a little girl with waist length dark hair braided on either side of her head in long pigtails. Another showed a picture of a small house surrounded by cop cars and yellow tape, with police escorting out a man and a woman-

_Thin hands stained red grasping the razor so tightly that new blood slid down her wrist but she didn't notice or care because now she stared at Aleta, screaming at the demon to leave before she cut it too-_

"Johnson? Ally?"

"Ngh..."

"Earth to Aleta."

"Isabel... he's my..."

"Don't swoon on me."

"_Holt."_

"Oh no."

Aleta flung open the door and slammed it shut. Her head spun as the heels of her combat boots clicked on the pavement of her driveway. Aleta would understand if Holt had hidden her birth parents from her. Kept her adoption a secret. Pretended to have no idea what she was talking about when she confided to him about her dreams and the young boy- her _brother_- in them.

But this?

Too far. Too much. Too late.

"Aleta!"

"Isabel, _not now._"

"Aleta, wait-" there was a scuffling sound behind her and Aleta whirled just as Isabel stomped after her in her high heels and designer clothes with a scary expression on her face. Isabel swung her purse lazily at her side.

"Isa-"

"I want to help you kick his sorry arse. He knew all about this and didn't help even when you were going crazy about it."

"How unlike you." Aleta growled in a thankful way and whirled back around. Her house was fairly big, since they lived at the edge of the woods and their closest neighbors, the Brisbanes, were miles away. The walls were a nice shade of beige painted by Aleta herself, with elegant windows and a carved wood door trimmed in gold.

She stormed inside, flinging the door open with such force that she wondered briefly if that cracking noise was the hinges before banishing the thought and screaming into the kitchen, startling Holt in the act of pouring himself a beer at the kitchen counter. He smiled sheepishly before he noticed the death expression on Aleta's face. Then he gulped and said,

"Shouldn't you be at school?"

Aleta laughed, high and shrill, then snatched the bottle from his hand.

"And YOU should be at WORK!" She screamed. "And _how many times do I have to tell you to LAY OFF THE ALCOHOL?"_

Aleta flung the bottle down with crushing force and it shattered to bits on the hardwood. Alcohol and the smell of fermented yeast splashed across the floor. Holt took an unconscious step back just as Isabel came into the archway behind her.

"What's wrong with you, Aleta Johnson?"

Aleta used to be scared of that, the full name, because it meant she was in trouble, but now it just made the whole situation worse for Holt. Aleta's eyes snapped and crackled with freezing white fire and she slammed the papers into his chest. Holt caught them when she retracted her hand, stared at them, paled.

"Johnson?" I said icily. "I think you've got me mixed up with someone else."

"Aleta..."

"Roth. My name is _Roth._"

"A-"

"No. I've known for _years _that I was adopted! I've known for as long as I can remember that I knew Sam! So did you. When I was crying from bloody nightmares, crying from the image of bloody razors and a drowned boy with stained red black hair with yellow eyes, you looked me in the eyes and you _lied _to me. You told me it was just a phase, damn it, instead of telling me that I was a freaking victim of attempted murder!"

"Oh, by the way, Mr. Johnson..."

Holt looked over only to get slugged in the face by Isabel, who had stepped up next to him.

Isabel shook her hand as Holt stumbled, clutching his cheek. "Ow. That hurts a lot more than it looks."

"I can't believe you," Aleta said quietly, all the anger draining away like sand in an hourglass. Now it was just empty. She had thought she was going to cry but now that she thought about it she didn't feel like crying. She felt like breaking apart into little shards. She felt like kicking Holt in the balls.

She felt like finding her brother.

"Aleta, I'm sorry. I didn't want you to find out about- I mean, like this. All the specialists told me-"

"Shut up. Just stop talking. And you know what- take care of your own damn self and your own damn drinking habits. I'm done. Isabel-"

"Yeah. I'll hide you my gigantic shoe closet, no problem."

"Good."

"Aleta..."

"Come on, Isabel."

"Don't tell me what to do." she said just to say it, and followed her out. Holt was silent and as they left, Aleta glanced back at the woods, and saw them- the wolves. The people. The wolves with eyes like the man she remembered from her dreams, although from this distance all she knew was that the wolf was black.

She slammed the door and Isabel slammed the door and Isabel hit the gas and snapped the car into reverse and the only thing she said on the entire twenty minute drive back to her house was "I'm sorry."

But then all Aleta felt was a sudden burst of hope in her chest-

Sam.


	3. The memory of candy

**Okay so I might steal some exact dialogue from the book to keep track of where in the book I am. New viewer from Mexico! Next step: Push down the little button so I know you didn't just leave... Just something like "good" or "needs improvement" or "stop whining." XD **

**Oh yeah, and I know Sam's song sucks. But you know what, I can't rhyme and he's seven so nya nya nya.**

Aleta stayed in Isabel's overly gigantic shoe closet- she could honestly say that it was bigger than her own room. She just nested with a bunch of ridiculously large down blankets that were heavenly and soft. Thankfully tomorrow was Saturday, no school required, and Isabel promised she would take them both to the mall and use her father's credit card to buy her new art supplies.

When she slept, she dreamed. Only now it was different.

"Why, Sam? Why did you never find me?" Aleta said in her whiny four year old voice. He stared back, all sad smiles and sharp teeth, and held out a hand to her. The gesture was thoughtful and soft and rounded, meant to soothe her but it only scared her now- he was a stranger in all ways and purposes.

"It's complicated," he said. "I can't see you."

"Why?"

"I have reasons. I wanted to but-"

"What?"

The world swirled and shifted and a harsh wind blew her up and swirled her pigtails into one big braid down her back. Lovely smells filled her nose and a sweet taste melted on her tongue. Aleta giggled and took another candy from Sam's hand. He laughed at her as she stuffed it into her mouth and she smiled stickily.

"Tham thould have thom, too."

"I'm not hungry."

"Lita knows what- Tham wants cocoa!"

"Ally-" Sam laughed.

"Daddy, Tham wants cocoa!"

"Does he?" Daddy said with a smile. "Well, I think I can help. Do you want one too, Aleta?"

"Yeth!"

Daddy laughed again and made his way to the counter to order some. A bored looking man turned to the shelves to get the cocoa mix and mint, and Sam laughed to sing in his high voice. Aleta squealed happily because Sam was the best singer ever in the whole wide world.

"Chocolate and whipped cream,

Good like a great dream,

Hot like a warm bed

and Cold like a stream."

"Yay! Look, look Tham- I'll dance!"

And so Aleta twirled and skipped around her brother who sang about hot chocolate and marshmallows, both of them totally unaware of the crowd they were attracting. Sam just laughed and Aleta just laughed and when Aleta tripped they laughed some more, and then they both drank their cold hot chocolate, giggling at each other with foamy whipped cream mustaches.

And then, Sam was gone.

Aleta woke with the taste of chocolate ghosting in her mouth. She wiped away the ever-present tears on her cheeks and smiled at the forgotten memory, because now she knew it was a memory and not some deranged torture method cooked up by her overactive brain. When she grunted and sat up, untangling herself from blankets and shoes with heels that looked like five inch long murder weapons, she knocked softly of the closet door. When she heard nothing, Aleta cautiously cracked open the door, only to see Isabel's bed made pristinely, with no actual Isabel in sight, which has weird.

"Isabel?" she whispered loudly and felt stupid when she got no answer. Aleta awkwardly stood and brushed herself off self consciously. Then she poked her head out, looked around, then took one very defined step forward, wincing when the floor creaked and sighing when nothing really happened.

She made her way to the door, listening to the echoing silence of nothing throughout the house, and then made her way back around to the window. Aleta peered outside, taking in the perfectly manicured lawn- probably cut exactly one inch high, the expensive cars, the police officers and flashing lights-

Wait!

Aleta gasped and yanked out her cell, which she had forgotten to take out of her pocket the night before and had slept with. To her chagrin, she realized that she had woken up way too early for a girl just hit with a life shattering revelation... six in the morning. She noticed offhandedly that she had six missed calls from Holt and a bajillion texts, but she deleted the lot of them and fired off a quick text to Isabel-

_Holt did NOT call the cops._

A moment passed.

Her phone buzzed.

_No._

_Why the cops then? Did the librarian come back for revenge?_

_Jack._

_What did Jack do?_

_Jack_

_Whats wrong Isabel?_

_I have 2 go._

_Isabel!_

Isabel didn't reply. Normally she would have jumped out, raced outside, and demanded to know what was going on, but Aleta wasn't supposed to even be here. She could see Isabel out the window, too- staring at her phone and standing next to her parents, who looked like they were having some kind of argument with the officer. Mrs. Culpeper was crying and Mr. Culpeper looked very pissed off and not at all in the mood to deal with an unexpected visitor.

So all Aleta could do was pace around and wait.

Pace.

In circles.

Around the room.

Pacingpacingpacingpacing-

Aleta saw the computer.

She couldn't believe she had never just googled Holt's name. Aleta had figured that maybe it was just an ordinary adoption and papers like that wouldn't just be randomly available on the internet. This was the same reason that Aleta had never checked the microfiche at the library before, and now she felt really _really _stupid. This was the chance to fill in some holes.

So she sat herself down at the desk and turned on the computer, typing in the password Isabel used for everything.

**Intracerebral hemorrhage**.

A password that nobody ever expected, not even the greatest of hackers. Aleta opened the google tab and typed Samuel Roth into the search engine, wondering how many Samuel Roths there had to be in the world and wincing slightly. Aleta clicked enter and her eyes widened when the first thing that came up was a legitimate _wiki definition _with a full color picture.

Clicking the link below it, Aleta read.

**... Line Break ...**

Her heart pumped and blood sloshed around in her veins. Not only was her brother alive- he was so close! The weird thing was that he lived so close and was never in school, because just how many schools were in Mercy Falls? But she shook that off. Nobody had actually seen much of him lately, but Aleta learned that the creepy tall man standing guard in her room was Beck, and Beck lived about thirty or so minutes away from here.

Aleta's world paused and she could very clearly hear her heartbeat in her ears. Samuel Roth was older in this picture, and his smile was fake and his eyes were sad. His yellow eyes, more like a wolf than they had been in her dreams, stared with a strange, sad kind of longing that portrayed even in a crummy ID picture.

Wait.

Wait.

Wait!

Aleta had seen those eyes before...

In the woods.

In the wolf.

Beck's eyes too, Aleta realized. The tall shadowed man from her dreams as well. They all stared, not entirely wolfish and not entirely human either. Her eyes filled with tears and she laughed because this was stupid and wolves weren't people but she wrote down the address anyway.

_I'm leaving. S_he texted Isabel. _I_

Aleta didn't even get to finish her second text before a reply buzzed in. It was saved to drafts.

_Why?_

_I found him._

_Jack is dead._

"What!?" Aleta exclaimed and flinched.

_What!?_

_Jack got mauled to death by wolves._

_Okay, screw your parents. I'm coming down._

_No. This is apparently old news. I lied when I said he was sick- he'd been missing for days. They found him right away but he was so messed up they couldn't identify him, and right after they did his body was stolen._

"Oh, for the love of white paint," Aleta muttered. She took a picture of a few of the tabs on the computer with her phone and then switched it off, pushing the chair back and rushing into the bathroom to quickly splash my face and scrub my teeth with my finger-really, Aleta was starting to think that running away was a bad idea, and that she probably should have stormed into her room and gotten her things before she stormed to Isabel's house.

She jumped down the stairs three at a time and took a shortcut through the kitchen that she hated to get the foyer and took the front door, stepping outside. Suddenly Aleta could hear what the cop and the Culpepers were fighting about.

"Stolen?" Mr. Culpeper said. "Who would steal a body from the morgue?"

"Sir, please-"

"Isabel, what the hell is going on?" Aleta cried across the lawn. "Is everything okay... um, with you?"

_Not jack, _she added in her head.

The Culpepers jumped a foot in the air and the cop whirled to see who it was. Aleta hadn't personally seen the officer before and apparently, she looked like a vagrant or something because he actually pulled out his taser like he was going to use it.

"Hey! Watch it, you suffocated bellbottom! Those hurt!" Aleta snapped and then winced. "Oh, um..."

"Isabel, who's this?" Mr. Culpeper asked.

"For the thousandth time, dad, this is Aleta."

"What the hell-"

"-kind of name is Aleta? For the thousandth time, sir, I don't know." Aleta said. "Isabel, gotta motor, but I'll see you later. You know where I'm going."

"How did she get in the house?"

"I walked."

And she walked now, wincing at the distance and sighing. She was pretty sure she could find the place, though, and set off walking in the right direction. After a minute or two she felt their stares leave her back and she pulled out her phone that she was so thankful had internet.

She pulled up a few of the pages and browsed around while she walked, and squealed when she found what was supposedly Beck's phone number. His previous law firm didn't seem to keep their employees information terribly safe.

Aleta called it.

And to her immense surprise, someone answered. Aleta knew she was being silly. Geoffrey Beck was not a wolf. Of course he would answer the phone, but there was still that certainness that he had been in her woods.

"Hello?"

"Um... Beck?" Aleta said quietly, suddenly shy.

"Who is this?"

"Is... is Sam there?" And Aleta knew she called him Sam, called him Tham, she was starting to remember. "Can I t-talk to him?" Nerves shook her form.

"Who is this?"

"This is... this is Aleta."

Silence permeated the connection, and Aleta listened to his breathing. The moment felt too sudden, too soon to be real.

"...Oh."

"Is S-Sam there?"

"Why are you calling now?"

"I... My dad never told me... I found out on my own. I r-remember so little. But I remember Sam."

"You weren't supposed to- Ah, Sam's not here right now. Please don't call again."

The call ended.

"The swot!" Aleta cried in outrage and huffed. It was a twenty plus minute walk and she fully intended to give Geoffrey a piece of her mind.

**... Line Break ...**

When she got there, there was no one home.

**... Line Break ...**

Aleta waited.

Waited.

Waited in the empty driveway, sitting; knees curled up into her chest.

Isabel drove up way later, late, in her car and picked her up, brought her home, talking useless chatter about Jack and Olivia and getting paint supplies next weekend because she was going to the police office tomorrow.

Aleta waited, but her phone stayed silent and cold in her pocket.

**... Line Break ...**

Aleta called again the next day and left a message when nobody answered. She spent the day researching werewolves and the murder case and realized her birth parents were so close in a prison and that maybe she might visit them, maybe they might explain why she dreamed about twisted wolves and razors.

She drove Isabel's car home while she was at the police station with her parents to take per paintings off the wall and snap photos of her murals, get her nesting blankets and her art supplies and her clothes and toiletries. Her father wasn't home, thank God. Maybe he really _was _at work. Maybe he was drunk somewhere.

For once, Aleta couldn't care less.

**... Line Break ...**

Aleta went to school Monday and barely paid attention through class, only gaining a mild interest when Officer Koenig came to talk to her Life Skills class. It turns out Grace Brisbane her neighbor had been bitten by wolves. She got that look in her eyes when she said it was dogs- fiercely protective. And Aleta couldn't help but agree: these guys were being inconsiderate butt-bags.

Isabel told me she had gone to the place where they had found Jack's body and found his BB gun.

**... Line Break ...**

Days were counted by homework assignments and ignored calls to Geoffrey.

**... Line Break ...**

All of a sudden, Grace Brisbane missed school. Isabel had noticed the day before. Aleta wouldn't have cared except- The gun Mr. Culpeper might use that Isabel reported. Why had Grace Brisbane, perfect-attendance-record-straight-A-student Grace Brisbane suddenly ditched? Good riddance, Isabel had said about the gun, the wolves killed Jack. Aleta didn't agree, of course, and that pissed Isabel off more than Aleta had ever seen.

But if Aleta was right, if what she suspected was true... she shuffled through the paintings and the crayon drawings of the wolves, wondering for the first time who the white one was with the snarling mouth and the interesting dark chocolate colored one that followed her sometimes.

"Stupid Grace and her stupid wolves," Isabel growled suddenly, slamming the door behind her with a growl. "Stupid me for telling her."

"Telling her what?" Aleta said, coming out of the closet, and Isabel blanched.

"Oh," she said. "I thought you were out in the woods painting those dumbass wolves."

"No. I decided not to. Isabel, what happened? Tell Grace what?"

Isabel sighed in a pissy way that screamed _bugger off! _in waves but Aleta just raised an eyebrow and waited, drawings and sketches and paintings in hand. One slipped free from her clutching fingers, and the light hazel human eyes of the dark brown wolf stared accusingly at Isabel from the ground as she opened her mouth.

"My dad... the police..."

"Isabel," Aleta said in a low voice, a questioning voice.

"Hunters."

"No!"

"Johnson-"

"Roth! What the hell, Isabel- Sam- oh no!"

"What?" Isabel said, but she was gone, papers fluttering onto the ground like broken butterflies in her wake. Isabel yelled after her but Aleta just jumped the stairs two at a time and left. Isabel could hear the door swinging open lazily, and when she rushed to the window and pushed it open, Aleta was long gone already, a speck in the distance, and Isabel cursed.

A sudden cool breeze swished in around her, ruffling her carefully made hair and twirling across the floor, picking up papers- Aleta's art- and twisting back, blowing them towards the window. Isabel gasped and reached out as they swept out the window, barely catching one with the tips of her flailing fingers before they were gone. Isabel had never seen these paintings, Aleta tended to hide away her wolves.

Before she ran downstairs to try and capture the papers scattering across her lawn, she snuck a quick look at it and her breath froze in her chest, cold air settling in her lungs. The edges flapped a little at the edges and the wind tugged at her hair again. Absently with one hand she tugged the window shut, her eyes glued to the vivid accurate depiction of a stormy gray coloured wolf on the treeline. Gold eyes stared sadly at the painter like she didn't know something really important.

"Oh my Jesus," Isabel said flatly. "Sam."

**... Line Break ...**

**Sam**

We ran. We were silent, dark drops of water, rushing over brambles and around the trees as the men drove us before them.

The woods I knew, the woods that protected me, were punched through by their sharp odors and their shouts. I scrambled here and there amongst the other wolves, guiding and following, keeping us together. The fallen trees and underbrush felt unfamiliar beneath my feet; I kept from stumbling by flying- long, endless leaps, barely touching the ground.

It was terrifying to not know where I was.

We traded simple images amongst ourselves in our wordless, futile language: dark figures behind us, figures topped with bright warnings; motionless, cold wolves; the smell of death in our nostrils.

A crack deafened me, shook me out of balance. Beside me, I heard a whimper. I knew which wolf it was without turning my head. There was no time to stop; nothing to do even if I had.

A new smell hit my nostrils: earthy rot and stagnant water. The lake. They were driving us to the lake. I formed a clear image in my head at the same time that Paul, the pack leader, did. The slow, rippling edge of the water, thin pines growing sparsely in the poor soil, the lake stretching forever in both directions.

A pack of wolves, huddled on the shore. No escape.

We were the hunted. We slid before them, ghosts in the woods, and we fell, whether or not we fought.

The others kept running, toward the lake.

But I stopped.


	4. To be shot for a Wolf

**This is really, really short. I lent the book to my friend and so I can't keep up with exact events, so I really couldn't go any further... writing this killed my poor eyes XD I _kinda_ dropped my glasses in the Indian river. Whoops. Now, the million-drachma question: So why am I writing when I shouldn't be reading anything? Well that's because I got a review! A very sweet review and thank you, guest! Oh, yeah, im not anywhere close to finishing it... but this brief chapter is dedicated in honor of Guest! Haha.**

Running through the woods was something Aleta was used to. Trying to catch the school bus, inpatiently trying to get to her most recently discovered painting spot, or just to clear her head. She'd gotten quite good at it, too, she could duck and weave and leap over invisible tree roots. She mostly tried to keep up with the wolves, but their natural grace left her in the dust. Yes, running through the woods was something she was used to.

Running through the woods flinching at every loud noise and almost getting shot in the face was _not _something she was used to.

Aleta skidded to a halt as a bullet ate into the trunk of the tree inches from her face, chewing through the wood and spitting shards. She coughed out splinters and kept going forward, ignoring the sudden call from the hunter who had almost killed her.

She _had _to _find _her _wolves._

Aleta veered suddenly as she came across an obviously dead wolf, shot through the head _she felt so __nauseated_ and barely cleared a log, stumbling slightly and reaching out to grab something, anything, and ended up scratching her hand across a stray branch, drawing blood but managing to keep on her feet, ducking to avoid another shot.

_Just how many hunters are there? _she thought before yelping and flinging herself down, sliding like a baseball player feet first under a small cluster of thorny plants. Stumbling to her feet again expertly, Aleta had to wonder how the _dark color _she'd managed to do that.

"Hey!" She yelled as an unfamiliar lake came into view: wolves lined up, shivering in fright and slathering at the mouth from exhaustion, trapped; men with rifles, lined up and panting but all smiling darkly at their success, aiming the barrels at the stumbling wolves.

Aleta scanned the group of wolves quickly, spotting the chocolate coloured wolf that followed her, the angry white female, and a few others she had painted before but Sam wasn't there and neither was Geoffrey or the dark one. But that didn't matter because they were about to slaughter beautiful creatures and she had seen the dead ones and that had to _stop._

It was dead silent, loud to her ears as she stumbled out of the woods into the clearing. All at once the men cocked their guns, the sound sending shivers up Aleta's spine and she didn't think just _jumped _out in front of them as thunder rang through the forest, scaring birds and shaking autumn leaves.

Aleta processed the shock on their faces, registered the frightened yips of the wolves that survived and the pained yowls of those hit, noticed the red liquid shooting up into her field of vision and the sound of ripping flesh and the metallic smell of blood, but she didn't feel pain as the bullet ripped through her shoulder and another through her thigh.

And then she heard, in a staticky sound like a radio blaring in the silence, someone yelling, _"There's a girl taking pictures! There's someone here! Hold your fire!"_

The wolves scattered.

**... Line Break ...**

When Aleta woke up, she remembered everything. So the nurse with the too-bright smile asking her what her name was, her age, asking how much she remembered over and over was just annoying and not at all helpful in any way.

To make matters worse, the adrenaline had long since worn off and _now _she felt pain rippling through her muscles.

"I know who I am. Now stop asking me questions!" Aleta bit out.

The nurse frowned. "Honey, please. We're just making sure you aren't in shock."

"I _counted._You would think that after the eighth time you asked I would still know my own name."

"What is it with gun wounds and facetious teenagers today?" The nurse, Sunny, wondered aloud. "First that girl claiming the boy with obviously cut wrists didn't try to kill himself, and now the girl who thinks she knows more about medical procedures than a nurse."

"Wait, wait," Aleta said, shifting her bandaged arm into a more comfortable position and wincing. Why in the world had she even done that? She'd blocked two bullets. Whoop de doo, girl, you blocked _two bullets out of an entire shootout. _But some of the hunters had missed, or jerked, or not fired- and so many wolves had survived that it had to be worth something. "You said, 'a boy with obviously cut wrists'?"

Because if she had, Aleta wouldn't believe her luck.

"Yeah. Boy with the weirdest gold eyes I've ever seen. Hold on, honey, don't move yet-"

"I'm fine. No symptoms of shock or PTSD, no excess bleeding, you already gave me my pain meds to take home-" Aleta motioned to the paper bag on the nightstand next to her as she pulled an IV out of her arm- "And Holt already filled out release papers, so now that the basic pre-release checkup is over I can leave."

"But-"

"You have no legal reason to keep me here, I'm fine. No bone injuries, just muscle and no I won't take my arm out of the sling and yes I will use my crutch so _bye."_

And with as much dignity as she could muster, Aleta hobbled out of the room in a hospital nightgown and holding a crutch. After that it was just a matter of limping through her part of the hospital wing and peeking into every room until she found the right one.

Peering into the window of a room and seeing Grace Brisbane talking to a male nurse, with _him_ lying on the bed behind them, Aleta's breath caught. He was here. _Right here. _If she wanted, Aleta could open the door. She could picture it: her walking in, announcing her name, Sam's instant recognition of her and the tearful yet happy reunion that would surely follow.

The nurse turned to make his way to open the door and Aleta's throat closed and suddenly the thought _I'm not ready _overwhelmed her common sense and in her panic, she fled just as the door opened and the flustered nurse made his way out. She bumped into him, apologized quickly and limp/speedwalked out of the hallway.

As she made her way to the front of the hospital where she pointedly ignored Holt, a worried, flustered mess of a man falling all over himself to take her meds and hold the door open for her, she drowned in her own embarrassment but couldn't bring herself to go back.

The weirdest thing was, after they were in the car and Aleta was kicking herself for not saying something, she could have sworn she saw him leaving in scrubs and a hospital nightgown like hers that she had to return.

**This story is writing itself, I swear. Almost none of this was supposed to happen!**


End file.
